STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. - Felony suspects on Staten Island are less likely to face trial than in the other boroughs, but in the rare instance where a case goes to trail here, jurors are far more inclined to convict than anywhere else in the city.

According to a criminal justice report released this month by the mayor's office, just 17 of the 738 felony cases that wrapped up in 2011 went to trial. That's about 2 percent, lower than any other borough, and lower than the 5 percent average.

Of those 17 cases, 94 percent ended in conviction, the highest rate in the city.

District Attorney Daniel Donovan's critics have, over the years, accused his office of essentially cherry-picking the cases that go to trial. In his failed 2011 bid to unseat Donovan, Democrat Michael Ryan accused Donovan of "statistical manipulation," and said he had declined to prosecute 12 percent of all arrests.

Donovan sees it differently -- defendants, and their attorneys, don't want to take their chances against a 94 percent conviction rate at trial, so they're more likely to plead guilty, and often to the top charge they face.

"We have an extraordinary number of our defendants plead to the top count in an indictment," Donovan said. "They plead to what we charge them with, rather than going to trial. That's not a plea deal, as some people report. You're charged with manslaughter, you plead to manslaughter, there is no trial... I can't cherry-pick when people are pleading to the top count."

State Department of Criminal Justice Services show that 49.1 percent of the time on Staten Island in 2011, when a defendant was convicted following a felony indictment, they ended up convicted of the top charge levied against them. 

That number's far higher than the Bronx's 29.8 percent and Brooklyn's 26.5 percent, and about on par with Manhattan's 49.3 percent. Queens topped the list with top-count convictions, at 61.9 percent. 

RECENT CASES 

Donovan's office points to a series of recent top-count guilty pleas, including one just this week -- Joseph Damiano, 37, who was arrested in 2012 as part of a 98-suspect state and federal sweep targeting people who "doctor-shop" for painkiller prescriptions. He pleaded guilty to third-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, the same offense he was originally charged with.

Defense attorneys often face an uphill battle on Staten Island, said lawyer Mark Fonte -- potential jurors tend to be more sympathetic with police than boroughs like the Bronx, which has a 44 percent trial conviction rate.

"The jury pool on Staten Island certainly favors the prosecution," he says, noting that the borough is home to many active-duty and retired law enforcement officials. "It's a prosecutor's dream."

Staten Island jurors look at a suspect and think, 'I wonder what he did," Fonte said, while in the other boroughs, they might think, "I wonder what he's wrongfully accused of."

Still, Fonte said the numbers cited by Donovan don't necessarily tell the whole story -- if a jury in a murder trial comes back with a guilty verdict on a lesser charge like manslaughter, he posits, "That's a loss for the D.A.'s office, they count it as a win... The numbers do not accurately reflect the reality of the situation."

According to the mayor's report, about 59 percent of felony arrests in the borough end in conviction -- slightly higher than the Bronx and Brooklyn, but lower than Queens and Manhattan.

Donovan calls that number misleading, and points to what he refers to as a "modified conviction rate," which doesn't include cases where police initially charge a defendant with a felony, but prosecutors determine that the evidence only supports a misdemeanor.

That can often happen in a drug arrest, he said, where police charge someone with felony possession with intent to sell, and prosecutors find out the next morning the suspect only had a few vials of crack cocaine in his or her pocket.

"The modified rate is really what you have to look at, because police officers aren't attorneys. Police officers, they arrest someone for a felony, when we review the evidence, may actually end up being a misdemeanor," he said.